The OpenMandriva Lx teams are pleased to announce the availability of the 2014.1 release!

Detailed below are some of the advances that the distribution has incorporated since OpenMandriva Lx 2014.0.

Available Media

This release is available as a live media DVD, downloadable in ISO format. These are available on our downloads page.

Live media means you're able to run OpenMandriva Lx straight from a DVD or memory stick (See Below) and try it before installing it. You may also install the system to hard disk either from the running live image or from the boot manager.

Important Note

The live media currently comes with no predefault mirrors. This means that there are currently no mirrors accessible to urpmi. The mirror list is updated/refreshed periodically.

It may be that you have installed this release very early, so the mirrorlist may not yet be due for update - so urpmi will refuse to work. There are two ways to correct this problem:

If you wish to run the live distribution (the option to Start OpenMandriva 2014.1 at the CD boot screen), you must have at minimum 1.5 GB of memory. At least 2 GB of memory is recommended for optimal performance.

Releases are available for i586 and x86_64 architectures. ARM architectures are not available for this release.

Virtual Machines

The same hardware requirements apply when running in virtual machines.

For VirtualBox, however, you must ALWAYS have at least 1536 MB of memory or OpenMandriva Lx will fail to boot.
Please ensure that VirtualBox is configured with "Enable PAE/NX" This option can be found under the System>Processor tab
Also for VirtualBox you must install to a fresh VM, as trying to install to an existing one may fail. This recent problem is being investigated.

Note that if you use qemu, you may need to select an alternative graphics driver other than your distribution default or you will boot to a black screen.

EFI Support

This is the first release of OpenMandriva Lx that incorporates support for UEFI booting. You should be able to boot on UEFI machines; however, we have only performed limited testing.

We welcome feedback on user experience. It should be possible to boot the live system on the majority of machines; however, your mileage may vary. Please file bug reports at our bug tracker.

Booting from USB

It is also possible to boot this release from a USB storage device. To transfer the live/installation you may use the ROSA Image Writer available from our repos:

At least 2GB of flash drive capacity is recommended. Persistent storage is not necessary. Note that this will erase everything on your USB!

via dd

You may alternatively dd the image to your USB stick:

dd if=<iso_name> of=<usb_drive> bs=4M

Replace <iso_name> with the path to the ISO and <usb_drive> with the device node of the USB drive, i.e. /dev/sdb.

New Features and Major Changes

The introduction of OpenMandriva Lx 2014.1 is an update from the previous version of OpenMandriva Lx 2014.0, and is also the third release under the community of the OpenMandriva Association. With that in mind, here are some of the new features:

Kernel

A new Kernel 3.15.10 NRJQL – a powerful variant of the 3.15.10 kernel that has been configured with desktop system performance, responsiveness, and realtime capabilities, in mind.

SQUASHFS_MULTI_DECOMPRESSOR within the kernel supports the use of all available CPU’s for faster booting of Live Images.

Some very recent USB patches that partially correct a misinterpretation of the USB standard will improve device compatibility and also ensure that devices re-awake properly after suspend or hibernate.

NFS has also received some attention with patches that will give faster start up of the NFS services.

This kernel version is enabled with kernel keys necessary to use the “EDID ovverride” feature, with this we should be able to override an incorrect screen EDID with boot time options, we have included EDIDBINS in the ISOs, a package containing 5 basic firmwares for the most common resolutions so that users may force different resolutions than the ones detected automatically by X.

The CONFIG_ACPI_CUSTOM_DSDT key allows loading of a customised acpi table. Details will be found on our Wiki in the kernel pages.

Highlight:
HT/SMT NICE feature added and enabled by default for a better responsiveness and realtime behaviour on all PC with HT (Hyper-Thread), improving performance of foreground applications at the expense of background ones.
Your desktop / gui / applications will remain fast even if you run folding@home, mprime, seti@home etc.
A more effective and precise control on the nice levels of server apps for its proper balancing and tuneups.

Desktop

The oma-welcome oma-welcome, or Welcome to OpenMandriva Lx has been updated to reflect the new version. This application introduces users to OpenMandriva Lx and shows them some of the features we have, as well as providing quick links to common tasks such as updating, installing new software, and configuring a desktop.

Xorg

We've upgraded Xorg to version 1.15.1, and Mesa to 10.2.6, which brings the latest free drivers for the best performance.
A Compose cache is now incorporated which speeds up application startup time and reduces memory usage especially in locales with large Compose tables (e.g. all UTF-8 locales).

We recommend that users change the composite manager in KDE from XRender to OpenGL mode. This gives transparency the proper blur effect. This also allows our theme and it's decorations to be shown at their best.

The network management, media centre, and mobile device support has also been updated.

LibreOffice 4.3.1

The latest LibreOffice featuring much faster load times and many bug fixes.

Firefox 32

The latest firefox with it's new graphical interface and all the latest features.

You may wish to suspend desktop effects when Firefox is in full screen mode, as it speeds up scrolling.

Java 7-8

The OpenMandriva Java stack has been entirely rebuilt to version 7 and is completely functional.

We currently provide Eclipse Kepler by default.

Printing

Improved support for printing, with an emphasis on the latest HP printers.

Upgrading to 2014.1

Upgrading between releases always has the potential to cause some problems. Upgrading is supported and we do test upgrades, but due to the huge range of packages and hardware configurations that are possible, the upgrade may cause unexpected problems. Therefore we recommend that you always perform fully backup your system prior to any upgrading attempt, since there can be a chance for a loss of data.
In particular be aware that upgrading between MDV-based packages and OMV-based packages may be the most problematic and should be avoided if possible.

We hope that upgrading between OpenMandriva Lx releases will become less problematic in the near future.

Upgrading from previous OpenMandriva Lx Releases

If you do NOT receive an upgrade notification from the Online Update applet, you may have to update your system.

If mdkapplet crashes trying to upgrade, you may have to update the packages on your system first. Bug #746 tracks this problem.

If you still do not receive a notification (we may not have pushed it to all systems) or wish to do a manual upgrade,
you may step through the following procedure.

Reboot when completed. The upgrade log is stored in /root/upgrade.log.

Upgrading from 2011.0

Please upgrade to 2013.0 first by following the procedures outlined in the 2013.0 release notes before upgrading to 2014.0.

Unavailable

DrakX Installer

The DrakX Installer is not included in this release. We hope to include it (or a new installer that brings back its features) in later releases.

Please note though that the various tasks that installed batches of software that were available in the old installer may still be used either through the OpenMandriva Tools or though the command line with urpmi.

These tasks may be listed by running 'urpmq --fuzzy task-'. Use these compilations at your own risk as they are not all currently maintained.

Some tasks such as task-games may require the addition of the the 32bit repositories for successful installation

Please also note that some tasks may pull packages from the contrib repository. Currently many of the packages in contrib have incorrect signatures. This is a known issue and you should not report incorrectly signed packages as a bug. This problem will be addressed post release when our build farm will have a quieter period so that the processor intensive resigning process can be run.

Changes to Hardware Support

Graphics Support

Graphics support has improved with the latest drivers however there are still issues with some hardware.

NVIDIA Graphics Cards

NVidia graphics cards are all currently supported by the XFDrake, the DrakX video configuration tool. In some cases it may be necessary to install older drivers using the command line.
These drivers are available from the OpenMandriva repositories. The reverse engineered nouveau driver gives moderately good support for these older cards and for some dual-screen work(Publishing) it is actually better as it supports screen rotation on a second monitor which is useful for monitors with rotatable screens.

ATI Graphics Cards

The latest ATI graphics cards are supported; however, we have not had any concrete feedback about its usage. Your mileage may vary.

If you are using Radeon HD7770 or if you experience a black screen at boot and you know that you have an ATI/AMD grahics card please add the command below to the grub2 cmdline:-

xorg.blacklist=ati

To do this at when booting the iso press the "TAB" key; the kernel bootline will be displayed at the bottom of the screen, go to the end of it and add any options required there. Press enter to boot.
If you need to enter a kernel parameter while boot an installed system the procedure is slightly different. At the boot screen press the "E" key and this will bring up the Grub editor. Search for the first line that begins with "linux" go to the end of it and add the option there. To boot press F10.

Intel Graphics Cards

Miscellaneous Graphic Cards .

We have not had feedback from users. Should you have an unusual graphics card that is not performing as it should please file a bug at issues.openmandriva.org

Changes to Installation

Unused Hardware & Language Removal

This feature has been re-enabled. It prompts you to run it at first boot, and you may run it any time afterwards from the oma-welcome application (Welcome to OpenMandriva Lx).

Changes to the DrakX suite of tools

Boot Configuration

We now default to using kcm-grub2 to control the boot loader.

Proprietary Drivers

We now install proprietary drivers correctly.

Firewall

We have deprecated drakfirewall in favour of firewall-config, which relies on firewalld.

Changes to Software Support

Major Package Upgrades

The following noteworthy packages have been updated:

Updated Packages

dracut

038.1

setup now for rapid booting

systemd

208

updated from upstream

initscripts

9.53

better NetworkManager support

plasma-nm

0.9.3.4

easier management of network connections

plasma-mediacenter

1.3.0

better control of your media centre applications

kio-mtp

20131020

improved access to your media devices, including Android phones

libimobiledevice

1.1.6

iOS 7 support

hplip

3.14.6

improved support for HP printers

cups

1.7.2

improved support for printers

mariadb

10.0.10

transition from MySQL

MySQL to MariaDB

We have transitioned from MySQL to MariaDB 10.0. This MAY break some applications that rely on internal MySQL routines or algorithms; please make sure your applications are compatible before upgrading.

Booting with systemd

Systemd has now been moved into the initramfs and the result is super-fast booting.
Switching runlevels has changed. Instead of adding the target runlevel, as before, there are now specific boot options. Namely, the following options must be appended to the kernel command line:

Rescue Mode: systemd.unit=rescue.target

Text Mode: systemd.unit=multi-user.target

Graphical Mode: systemd.unit=graphical.target

Desktop Environments

Please note that only KDE is supported by OpenMandriva Lx at this time. LXDE, Unity, GNOME, XFCE, or any other desktop environment is not supported.

Media Sources

contrib

contrib represents community maintained packages. These are not supported by the core OpenMandriva Lx team, and depend on package maintainers to update it.

restricted

restricted contains libraries that aren't installed by default due to legal concerns. The usage of these packages vary by country - OpenMandriva Lx is not responsible for their usage! If you believe that their usage is unallowed in your country, please disable the restricted repositories.

Other Changes

Monitor EDID Loading

The "EDID ovverride" feature is now available and allows a monitor with incorrect (or no) EDID to be enabled at kernel boot
A package "edidbins" has been included in the ISOs which provided five binary files to support the most common resolutions. These may be called from the kernel command line at boot such that screen resolution may be force to that which the user desires. Obviously a facility like this should be used with care as it has the potential to damage your monitor.
In order to enable one of the supplied edid's you need to add the following line to your kernel command line "drm_kms_helper.edid_firmware=edid/1280x1024.bin" obviously you can select your resolution from those supplied which are.

1024x768
1280x1024
1600x1200
1680x1050
1920x1080

As things currently stand these resolutions are available as soon as the root directory is mounted. If you want these resolutions for plymouth then you will need to incorporate the edid binary file in the initramfs. Dracut the image builder does not currently support this. The current approach would be to unpack the initramfs, add the necessary files and then repack.

Errata

As with any release, there are still issues and bugs that may not have been resolved. This page documents those that may cause inconvenience and where possible details how they may be worked around.

Booting Live DVD/USB

If you have a problem booting the live image with some hardware please report a bug detailing your hardware and any observations that you make if you are affected by this problem.

Partitioning with Small Disks

When using the custom partitioning tool to divide up the hard disk/s be aware that there is a minimum size requirement a root partition that contains the /usr directory of at least 5.0Gb. If the partition is made smaller that this the partition manager will not function correctly.

Due to the adoption of systemd the use of a separate /usr partition is no longer possible.
It is still permissible to have a separate /usr/local partition.

Workaround: If you receive an error message stating that the partition is smaller than the minimum requirement then do not try to resize it as this will fail; instead, use the auto-allocate function which will automatically create a partitioning scheme for you, which you may then delete or change to suit your own requirements. This will clear the error.

Local Network Sharing

The firewall service, firewalld is now disabled by default, if required it may be re-enabled via the OMA Contol Centre under the system entry.

Parental Controls

Parental Controls are currently non-functional.

Workaround:
None available at the moment.

Partitioning with Small Disks: Clearing the partitioner

When using the custom partitioning tool to divide up the hard disk/s be aware that there is a minimum size requirement a root partition that contains the /usr directory of at least 5.0Gb. If the partition is made smaller that this the partition manager will not function correctly.

Due to the adoption of systemd the use of a separate /usr partition is no longer possible.
It is still permissible to have a separate /usr/local partition.

Workaround:
If you receive an error message stating that the partition is smaller than the minimum requirement then do not try to resize it as this will fail; instead, use the auto-allocate function which will automatically create a partitioning scheme for you, which you may then delete or change to suit your own requirements. This will clear the error.

Console has incorrect keyboard

If you still have problem with virtual console incorrect language setting, keyboard map or font, first
run localedrake and then keyboraddrake. After choosing your local setting make sure to reboot.
In /etc/default/grub - GRUB_CMDLINE_LINUX_DEFAULT you should have these:

vconsole.keymap=<yourkeymap> locale.LANG=<yourLANG>

If problem is font map related then add to cmdline through grub2's /etc/default/grub - GRUB_CMDLINE_LINUX_DEFAULT:

vconsole.font.map=<yourfontmap>

For instance:
vconsole.font.map=8859-2

Network Icon disappears

You may find that the network icon disappears when you reboot after creating a new user.

Workaround:
You can re-enable it by right-clicking on the system tray in the panel, unlocking the widgets and under the list of extra items setting a tick in Network Managment and then clicking on the apply button.

French Keyboard

Settings may have changed.

Workaround:
The default settings for the French keyboards have changed. See Bug #727 for more information.

wheel

Please note that the first user created on the system is part of the wheel group, which allocates special privileges that are usually only allocated for the root user. Users in wheel can bypass certain password dialogues to change system settings.

Workaround:
This is intended behaviour. If you wish to disable this, remove users from the wheel group.

Black Screen at Boot

There is an issue with systems that have two different graphics adapters but only one of them is operational. Typically this is a Nvidia GPU combined the either Intel or AMD/ATI. Due to the automated nature of driver selection in modern systems if the non-functional GPU is automatically selected then X will load the matching driver. Thus the working GPU never gets setup resulting in a black screen.
We have recently added a new boot command line option to allow an Xorg driver to be blacklisted thus allowing the correct driver to be detected.

To use this feature you must edit the grub2 command line. You can do this by selecting your desired boot option and then pressing TAB. To the end of the line add the following:-

xorg.blacklist=<driver to blacklist>

To determine which driver needs to be blacklisted is probably best achieved by booting the system to a text mode and checking which driver has been loaded at boot time. A procedure for doing this is detailed below. In some circumstances this may not be possible and you will need to resort to your motherboard/Graphics card specifications or trial and error. It will be necessary to permanently add the line to the grub2 command line that boots the installation. This is described below.

There are other circumstances where a black screen may be encountered. For example if you wish to use the proprietary driver for your graphics adapter it may be necessary to inhibit the kernel mechanism that loads the free drivers. In these circumstances adding

nomodeset

or

nokmsboot

to the kernel command line will normally be enough to allow installation of the OS or running with the manufacturers drivers . If necessary the command may be added permanently by editing /etc/default/grub at the GRUB_CMDLINE_LINUX_DEFAULT label and adding the required command. Then run update-grub2

To boot to text mode:-

1: Boot from the DVD/USB stick and at the grub selection screen select the livecd option and press TAB. Edit the grub command line by and add the command

"systemd.unit=multi-user.task nomodeset"

to the end and boot the machine. This will bring you to a command prompt where you can login.

2: Login as root and then type lsmod | less and observe the output. Look for the loaded graphics driver by finding the drm entry the graphics driver will be listed here. It will be typically nouveau, radeon or i915 (there may be others). The name used here will be the name to add to the xorg.blacklist= parameter

Backlight Issues

There are some machines with Intel GPU's (Netbooks particularly) that may still give a black screen even with everything set up correctly; this is due to the screen backlight logic being inverted. This may be fixed by adding i915.invert_brightness=1 parameter to the boot command line. This may be needed in addition to the xorg.blacklist= parameter.

Incorrect tty

On boot it may be found that you are presented with terminal screen rather that the normal graphical login, In this case you may need to switch ttys (terminal); you can do this by pressing alt+ctrl+F7 if you still have no graphical login try using the same key cobination but with a different function key. Key F1-F7 are all different ttys (terminals).
Please report a bug for this problem noting your what hardware you are running on.

Boot to a dracut prompt

If this happens all is not lost. This may be indicative of the lack of disk driver for your hardware. Dracut indicates that it has produced a bug report which you can copy to a memory stick and then attach to a bug report you will need to mount your memory stick. Assuming it is FAT formatted then plug it in and type 'dmesg' the device name of your memory stick should be visible it will be in the form /dev/sd<x> the bracketed x will vary depending on how many drives have been found on your machine if for example you have one other drive then the entry might read /dev/sdb.
Create a new directory /mnt with 'mkdir /mnt' then type 'mount -t vfat /dev/sdb1 /mnt' and the drive should be mounted. (Note the 1 added to the device name). You should then be able to copy files to your memory stick with 'cp <files> /mnt/' . Please take the trouble to report this type of problem as receiving these reports is the only way we can improve our distribution.

Contact, Bug Reporting, Discussion

For us to get the most information about your situation, it is a wise idea to install omv-bug-report:

urpmi omv-bug-report

Then, as root:

omv-bug-report.sh

will generate an archive containing system information that can be attached to a bug or mailed to a maintainer. This will greatly assist them in the diagnosis of the problem being reported.

Helping the Project

As always, the OpenMandriva development teams (Cooker & QA) are always looking for new contributors to assist in creating and maintaining packages and to assist bugfixing and testing. You are welcome to join us and help us in this work which is not only rewarding but also tremendous fun!

If you feel that your talents do not lie in the realm of software, then the OpenMandriva Workshop group, which is made up from the artwork, documentation, translation and Communication teams, is always open for the submissions of artwork and translations. New contributors who would like to help with these wide-ranging tasks should see our wiki (wiki.openmandriva.org) for more details, and to learn how to join!. Alternatively you may sign up to the mailing lists available here.

It also costs time and money to keep our servers up and running. If you can, please donate to keep the lights on!